When you hop-off at our South Kensington museums stop 66 on the Blue Tour, you are within a few minutes walk to three of the greatest museums in London; The Victoria and Albert Museum, The Science Museum and The Natural History Museum. And the good news is that they are all free to enter!
The Victoria & Albert Museum.
The Victoria and Albert Museum is the world's largest and finest museum of decorative and applied arts and design, housing a mammoth collection of over 4.5 million objects. Founded in 1852, and built on land purchased with money from the success of The Great Exhibition in 1851, the V&A has mushroomed and today houses over 145 galleries. The collection spans 5000 years of art, from ancient times to the present day and includes the cultures of Europe, North America, North Africa and Asia. Indeed, the holdings of ceramics, silver, glass, furniture, textiles, costumes, sculpture, ironwork, jewellery, medieval objects, prints and printmaking, drawings and photographs are amongst the most comprehensive in the world.
Admission to the V&A is free although some exhibitions and events carry a separate charge.
The Science Museum.
The Science Museum has been in existence for about 150 years. It too has its origins in The Great Exhibition of 1851, held in Hyde Park in the huge glass building known as the Crystal Palace (designed by Joseph Paxton). The popularity of the exhibition ensured money to buy the land on which the museum stands.
The Science Museum is every child’s (and adult’s) dream museum. It’s where you can see steam engines, railway engines, aircraft (including the one in which Alcock and Brown made their flight across the Atlantic), Fox Talbot’s first camera and Thomas Edison’s phonograph. There’s an Enigma cypher machine, an early washing machine and even one of Charles Babbage’s original computers. Agriculture, navigation and space exploration are also fully represented – look out for NASA’s Lunar Command Module Apollo Ten - and there are many hands-on exhibits.
Admission to the Science museum is free although some exhibitions and events carry a separate charge.
The Natural History Museum.
The Natural History Museum is a magnificent building designed in the 1880s by Alfred Waterhouse. It contains an extensive collection of fossils, animal and plant life, minerals including meteorites and periodicals on all aspects of natural history. This is where you’ll find a life size model of a blue whale and where you can experience an earthquake in the earthquake simulator. You can also experience the thrill and danger of life amongst the dinosaurs and come face to face with a terrifying T.rex. Decide for yourself on the facts and the myths about why dinosaurs died out and find out what the dinosaurs looked like, what they ate, and how they evolved during the 160 million years of the dinosaur era. In fact, it was in the Natural History museum that zoologist Sir Richard Owen first coined the word ‘dinosaur’ from the Greek for ‘terrible lizard’.
Outside, the real life “Wildlife Garden” is the place to head for if you want a glimpse of natural history at work. Dragonflies, foxes, robins, woodcock, marsh marigolds, lime, hornbeam, primroses … the Wildlife Garden is a haven for thousands of British plant and animal species. The Wildlife Garden is free and open daily, weather permitting.
Admission to the Natural History museum is free although some exhibitions and events carry a separate charge.